Saturday, June 10, 2017

I was full blown surprised earlier this week when I got an email from Too Many Verlanders saying a package full of Yanks was heading my way. It was completely unexpected and he beat me to getting my mail day out to him as well.

Having too many Yankees was a problem for him and I became the lucky recipient. Not only did he include a healthy stack of Yankees, he also tossed in some Jr's and some G-men for the PC while he was at it.

There was so much in this mail day that it's a two-parter and I couldn't even show it all.

Here is the rest of the healthy stack of Yanks and Giants he included....

Now let's show off the rest!

Some really cool stickers including holograms

Some of my favorite Yanks including Bernie and Roger. I just wished Roger wasn't apart of the PED situation, he was one of my favorite all-time pitchers until then.

Some more Clemens. Very shiny edition!

Some great looking cards here of Gehrig, Godzilla, and Berra

Some blue Topps parallels and a Phil Hughes rookie. The guy was supposed to be the next Roger Clemens when they first talked about him. He wasn't even close.

Derek!! I am always looking to add to that PC. But sometimes Jeets cards cost more than Griffeys.

Totally in love with this one. Coin and card. I miss the 90's badly.

Another great 90's card with a touch of Griffey.

And we finish it up with some new Juniors. Really digging the Flair addition. That was one of my favorite products for football, baseball and basketball in the 90's.

Overall a solid start. Tomorrow I will finish up the showcase including some hits he included as well.

Well, this is the finale of the BASEically Awesome segment. I hope you have enjoyed its place here on Sport Card Collectors over the past 6 months. But, as I stated in an earlier one of these, I have decided to let go of segments and free blog.

So I thought to myself, what a way to end this segment by looking back at some 90's looking cards that are cheesy and contain many 90's trends. This product made the list because of it's quirkyness.

Lots of players two-sporting it. We don't see a lot of that anymore unless you're Tim Tebow.

Rocketing it!

Showing off his "guns"

There are 230 cards in this set that are just as quirky as these above. However, there is a Favre rookie to hunt down and some random autographs to search for. Boxes go for less that $10 so it could be a just for fun break.

So how bout you guys? You bust any of this or own any still? What was your favorite quirky card from the set? Comment below!

Friday, June 9, 2017

Well, if you haven't noticed this week,I have been putting up two new posts a day. Well, that trend will continue for awhile . I have had some drafts stuck on here since 2016, so I think it's time to set them free. I get the pleasure of cleaning out my drafts, you get the pleasure of reading two new posts a day with some pretty cool cards involved.

To kick this off, let's take a gander at a pretty cool card. Not something you see everyday and one that may be the only one out there.

This is a rare card called Laminate Proof from 1995 Finest. I found this while searching for a 1995 Topps Finest refractor of Hampton. The card itself is the top laminate (plastic) layer only and the words that say "Topps Finest Protector, Peel and Remove Coating" are actually just printed on the laminate layer.

The card is a tad bigger than a normal sized card but is a bit thinner since it's just the thin layer.

The back looks pretty slick. It's got some embossing, completely a refractor and stands out. This may be my favorite card in my Hampton collection right now.

The seller I bought this from even accepted my $2 offer on the card so I got it for a steal. He does have other Giants versions of this for sale currently that I hope to someday add to my PC.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

To me, Topps Archives plays the hobby role of "Things We Wished That Were But Weren't Until Now".

I mean who doesn't like seeing older iconic designs with players of today on them. It adds an extra special fun aspect and of course a nostalgic one to busting open packs.

This years product features the 1960, 1982, and 1992 Topps designs.

In every box of 2017 Topps Archives baseball you will find 24 Packs Per Box with 8 Cards Per Pack. There are two on-card autographs per box as well. Boxes currently are running a bit high at about $115, but it's a fresh new hot release so it's expected.

Like I said earlier, the base card designs are based off from the 1960, 1982, and 1992 Topps designs and is a 300 deep checklist that splits 100/100/100 for each design.

The base set is also built up of players past, present, future and Jeter. That's right, Derek is back in base sets! One thing I found intriguing is teams that were chosen for former players who played for multiples. They seemed to had chosen their beginning teams and I dig it. I really liked seeing Big Unit in an Expos uni. How often do we see that in base sets today???

I put a few images up for the base to give you an idea of what you will find.

Key Rookies to find in the product are Aaron Judge, Yoan Moncada, Andrew Benintendi, Dansby Swanson, Yulieski Gurriel, Alex Bregman, Tyler Glasnow. I surprisingly didn't land many of these names. I was also really hoping Judge would be found for my new growing PC but not in this box.

There is also 20 tough to find base card variations as well.

Just like with past Topps releases, you can easily define the variations using them. They are located on the back at the base of the card.

Base Code ends in #2782

Variation Code ends in #2799

The parallels in are easy to find in packs which is always a big help.

There is

Peach Parallel numbered to 199 fall 1:14 packs

Blue Parallel numbered to 75 and fall 1:37 packs

Red Parallel numbered to 25 and fall 1:110 packs

Black Parallel: numbered 1/1 fall 1:2763 packs

I was fortunate to pull a red in my break but not the best of players. I also got 2 peaches which is a unique parallel and a blue.

Other parallels include 1960 Grey Back (has a grey back)/ 1982 Blackless (they remove the signature)/ 1992 Gold "Winner" Parallels. The Gold Winner parallels are pretty easy to spot with the gold foil on them just like the good ole days and the word winner. The odds of pulling any of these are a tough 1:110 packs.

There are not a lot of inserts in Archives, but I think the ones that are in do count and fit the theme.

The excitement for Derek Jeter's cardboard return is defintely shown in this product with DEREK JETER RETROSPECTIVE INSERTS that fall 1:12 packs. There are usually two per box and that's what I got.

There are 21 cards in the set celebrating Derek in Topps designs from 1993-2015.

For those of you who like inclusions like these or you are a Derek Jeter fan or Yankees fan, the Jeters also have fun chases as well with Sp's and parallels.

Parallels for the set include:

Blue foil numbered to 150

Green foil numbered to 99

Gold foil numbered to 50

Red foil numbered to 10

Black foil numbered 1/1

There are also 3 tougher Sp finds that fall 1 per case besides the easier 21. The three include the 1993 Topps Draft Pick card, the 2015 Topps card, and the 2007 that had the Mantle/Bush on it. These have parallels as well.

Green foil numbered to 99

Gold foil numbered to 50

Red foil numbered to 10

Black foil numbered 1/1

I must also toss in the fact there are Jeter autographs of these as well!

Well, now that we are done discussing Jeter's role in 2017 Archives, let's discuss the other inserts.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Well, my hits were not the best in the break for the price. My overall break was a little weak from base to rookies to parallels to hits but I would not let that push you away from giving it a go. I have also seen many really solid breaks. If you also don't feel like pouring out the money for a hobby box, you could go check out retail blasters. You could pull an auto but if not, you will at the very least get some cool coins that are a throwback to the early 90's.

You could also check out some box breaks like the ones at Top Shelf Breaks.

I feel the nostalgia factor is also a draw-in here for those of us who enjoyed these designs. There is also a solid autograph checklist for the offerings.

I like how they did the Jeter inclusions in the product, but I bet many Red Sox fans won't. #GoYankees.

To finish my review, I must say everyday there has also been a lot of chatter on Twitter with the autograph additions of Zack Hample and Skip Bayless in the product that many collectors are bashing and complaining about. What are my thoughts on this, well, when do we get blogger ones?? That would be a dream come true. Can you imagine, Topp(s) Bloggers subset and autographed ones.....

Please make sure to take a minute out to thank Topps for providing this
box for me to review and to be able to add cards to the MLB Pick Em
promotion.
Follow Topps on all social media sites and visit their site, as well. Look for one of these autographs to be July's prize!

Here comes another one of those unopened packs I have been storing away. This is a product I felt you could find everywhere.

I even found half a box at a yard sale 10 years ago and have held onto a few packs to open later on. I don't remember opening any back in 1994, which was my second year in the hobby, but I did bust a lot of the football version that after seeing this one had the much better design and parallels.

So what do you guys think? You bust a lot of '94 Topps baseball back in the day? What was your favorite card from the base set? Let me know below!

Sunday, June 4, 2017

Not since Derek Jeter have I been this excited about a Yankees player as I am in Aaron Judge. This dude can hit the ball and hit the ball far and hard as we all can tell with his league leading 18 dingers.

Also for the first time in years, I have started to keep tabs on my team once again and watched a few games as well because of the excitement that Judge brings. Judge has simply brought me back to watching baseball. Something I haven't really done a whole lot of since Griffey Jr's retirement as Ken was a big reason I watched baseball.

Of course I watched the Yankees A LOT back then as well but not so much in recent years.

It amazes me how one player can change my look at baseball and give me a reason to pay attention to it once again. I have always collected the cards but haven't paid much attention to the game recently.

So yesterday, I spent at least a few hours going through binders to round up what Aaron Judge cards I had besides the few I knew of from 2017.

Here was the sad results,

2014 Bowman and Bowman Chrome:

2015 Bowman Chrome Prospect Profiles

and a 2016 Bowman's Best Prospect

And here are my 2017's I knew of already:

2017 Bowman x 2

2017 Topps

2017 Topps Rainbow Foil which is by far my best card of the group.

Obviously an autograph is tops on my wantlist, but I would also be happy in owning 2017 Archives, Heritage, Donruss, Gypsy Queen and Opening Day rookies as well along with other Bowman ones I am missing since baseball is a weird rookie sport and he has had cards released since 2013.

What are your thoughts on my small PC? What's the best Aaron Judge you own? Do you think this is a super star in the making or a one year wonder?